Biotechnological Improvement of Plants
To date, almost all improvements in agricultural crops have been achieved using traditional plant breeding techniques. In recent years, biotechnology approaches involving the expression of single transgenes in crops have resulted in the successful commercial introduction of new plant traits, including herbicide resistance (glyphosate (Roundup) resistance), insect resistance (expression of Bacillus thuringiensis toxins) and virus resistance (over expression of viral coat proteins). Thus, plant genomics may be used to achieve control over polygenic traits. Some of the traits that may be improved, resulting in better yield and crop quality, are listed below.
Control of Cellular Processes in Plants with Transcription Factors
Strategies for manipulating traits by altering a plant cell's transcription factor content can result in plants and crops with new and/or improved commercially valuable properties. For example, manipulation of the levels of selected transcription factors may result in increased expression of economically useful proteins or biomolecules in plants or improvement in other agriculturally relevant characteristics. Conversely, blocked or reduced expression of a transcription factor may reduce biosynthesis of unwanted compounds or remove an undesirable trait. Therefore, manipulating transcription factor levels in a plant offers tremendous potential in agricultural biotechnology for modifying a plant's traits, including traits that improve a plants survival, yield and product quality.